Author: Leonid SAVIN

The aggressive attacks launched by the Democrats, although those were intended as a measure to discredit Donald Trump, will ultimately come back to haunt them, once they themselves end up being blamed for the deteriorating sympathies toward the Democrats and the US on the part of America’s allies and partners — not to mention its competitors.

Although the US maritime presence is global, and every country in the world, in one way or another, falls under the responsibility of the various Pentagon commands, the official line justifying the US presence from the Horn of Africa to the Strait of Malacca will now be more assertive and direct.

The US needs to preserve its presence and influence wherever possible. This suggests supplementing a certain formula: a large fleet, forward deployment, and secure logistics with cooperation that is international, inter-agency, and public-private in nature. This could create a “smart-power approach for the seas”.

Given that the US political system is based on “iron triangles” — the intersecting interests of corporations, government officials, and special-interest groups — it is unlikely that any truly sensible decision will be made in the US in regard to the use of armed force that would make it possible to resolve conflicts by means of diplomacy instead.

It’s fairly likely that the current crisis of liberalism will definitively bury the unipolar Western system of hegemony. And the budding movements of populism and regional protectionism can serve as the basis for a new, multipolar world order.